and they have escaped the weight of darkness
by Maxwell Lily
Summary: "I want a drink only you can make." When he pours it and hands it to her, she can feel his fingertips brushing against her. The drink is dark red like wine but sweet, so sweet. She should be intoxicated but she's not, she only traces the border of the glass, thinking: I have been found. [Hades & Persephone AU]


Her mother doesn't know she's there.

The music reverberates inside her head and the lights blind her in flashes. She stumbles, loses herself in the crowd, bodies pressing against her, a hand trailing down her back before she trips forward, towards the bar. There's a vague, throbbing pain growing in the back of her head but she ignores it, her white heels moving and moving until she's sat down, eager to get rid of the bad taste of betrayal in her mouth.

She locks eyes with the bartender and neither of them blink for long time, the music changing into a different pandemonium of sounds. She swears there's a red light inside of him, reflecting in his irises, but attributes it to the environment, to the outside. She can only see the right side of his face, the left hidden behind a curtain of hair that is far too long, longer than she has ever seen on a man those days. It looked appropriate on him. Timeless. Suiting the black of his clothes, the poise of his body. She can hear his voice clearly amongst the loudness, asking what she will have, and her laugh is bitter, self-loathing.

"What's the best drink to have when you discover the man you were dating is actually married?"

His hands move graciously as he prepares her drink and she watches it like he's unraveling a secret. The drink is green and it burns, her throat, her eyes, but he gives her only one glass. After it's consumed her, she tilts her head back, closes her eyes, sways to a rhythm. She dances with herself, pushes back any man who approaches her, the bartender's eyes never leaving her. She dances and spins, inebriated, until her feet can't take it anymore. She goes home when she wants. By the time she wakes up in her rose-colored bedroom, she's forgotten all about her disappointments.

She goes with a friend the second night, but all heads inevitably turn towards her. Her dress is soft like a flower's petal and it seems to glow. The bartender with the red eyes is there again, moving towards her like the apple to the ground. When he blinks, it's like he's in a different frequency, slower, she can't look away. Just like before, his voice is louder than the noise. Clear, accentuated. _What will you have?_

"My friend and I want to enjoy ourselves tonight."

With his back to her, she eyes the length of his shoulders and pictures herself running her nails on his back. Not enough to hurt, just enough to see a reaction. The drinks he gives them is a vibrant yellow that they're almost too scared to drink. He gives them a lopsided smirk filled with challenge. They down the shot glasses and it's laughter for the rest of the evening. They link their hands and dance, the dancefloor is a field by the moonlight in which they bathe and frolic, all but missing the flowercrowns. Many, many hours pass before she opens her eyes and a smile graces her features at the new memories.

She's tired of the catcalls and the attention, of all her male friends mistaking her friendship for a different kind of promise. She's tired of being wanted and never wanting. She craves. She fantasizes. Her mother thinks she's the sweet girl taking care of the flower shop but even a flower shop has red roses and thorns. She has lips and teeth. She keeps going back. Finds herself wanting.

One day, someone tries to slip something in her drink. She thinks that's what it is. She doesn't even remember talking to the guy. She only sees when he's thrust away from her and the glass shatters on the floor. The bartender's ponytail falls back into place, in a different frequency. He's not that tall but when he stands beside her it's like those eyes stare down from much higher above. The lips, however, seem so close. One breath away. She touches her own lips as he walks back behind the counter and gives her a new drink. Safe. On the house.

She tells him her name is Hae Soo. He asks, _what are you looking for in this land of the lost_ , and she doesn't know. Knows only that there's a pull. Knows only that every day has no taste and no smell. She tells him that she's a disappointment and a failure and nobody even suspects. He listens, looks in her eyes. She notices the other bartenders will offer kind smiles but he never smiles and still she wants his undivided attention. Those eyes. She wants.

On the tenth night she sees him again, just like on every other night. He's always there, he's always waiting, like there's no other place he's supposed to be. When he asks, she smiles, shows him her bright teeth, and says:

"I want a drink only you can make."

When he pours it and hands it to her, she can feel his fingertips brushing against her. The drink is dark red like wine but sweet, so sweet. She licks her lips and he watches her, there are no words between them. She should be intoxicated but she's not, she only traces the border of the glass, thinking _I have been found._

There are dark corridors in the club that she's avoided because she's never wanted anyone to follow her before. She knows the footsteps are his. Thinks that, maybe, he really did hear her. _He has heard my plea_. She can hear the echoes of her heartbeats when he takes hold of her wrist, pulling and pushing until her back is against the wall. She hears nothing else then, focusing on his soft breath on her face and his gentle touch on her cheek.

She doesn't expect him to be gentle but it's only at first. When he kisses her it's like a wave coming down, stealing her air, the control of her knees. His hold on her waist is firm and she likes his hands, had fantasized about them for days and days. He attacks her neck, a vampire that didn't want her blood. She has her arms around him but it's not enough, there's a height difference in the way and a lack of balance that threatened to bring them both down.

He leads her through corridors and corridors, the minotaur and his labyrinth, and she has no red thread to lead her out. _I was lost and now I'm found._ The light is dim and she can't see the end of anything, the walls, the corridors, the stairs. His fingers are interlaced with hers and she doesn't trip, not once. He leads her into a room, _his_ room, and once they're inside, he's on her again. All over her, lifting her off the ground, her legs around him, she undoes his ponytail and runs her hands through his hair until they fall down on soft sheets.

There's a storm outside, she can see the raindrops falling against his window before she closes her eyes, arching her back to his touch. She lets him consume her because it's what _she_ wants, her white dress unbuttoned, black hair spread against white skin. When he kisses her mouth again she can see her lipstick on his lips like dried blood, she inhales deeply, flips them over so she can see him from above, up on her knees and so dangerously close to his lap.

Her lips hover above his when she asks his name and she hears, feels it. _Wang So._ She repeats it in her head when she bites his neck, kisses down his chest. When she looks up at him he looks almost surprised, like he's pleasured women before but had never been reciprocated. She revels in the knowledge, the responses under her tongue and his breathless voice. He doesn't let her finish, pulls her back and flips them over again.

His eyes are most definitely red in that light, against the monochrome of his room. Red and dilated, burning into her. When he's on top of her he's a hellhound, nose tickling her skin, voice low and possessive. She shivers, a multitude of sensations, crying out his name, the only name that matters, their fingers still interlaced. _I was lost and now I'm found._ His hair smells like the drink, his mouth tastes of the drink, it's sweet and she can't go back home, not anymore. Outside, the rain never stops. She doesn't bleed.

The sun rises at one point. It doesn't do much to illuminate the room, but she can see the high shelves full of books and notebooks and annotations. Dressed in his clothes, she walks to the shelves and runs her fingers through the spines, eyes grasping the names of sins and souls. He comes up behind her, wrapping his arms around her, and whispers against the skin of her neck,

"These are the tales of the lost. If you choose to read, you may find it hard to leave."

She places her hands on his, already enveloped in his scent, and responds,

"I did not come here to leave."

And she reads. Understands his annotations, understands him. There's no more regret or disappointment for her.

Her name is Hae Soo and she was once known as a flower girl. Her smiles didn't meet her eyes and the men longed to steal her for themselves, to ravish her, to corrupt her. She's now Wang So's wife, the bartender who never spoke to any other woman before her, out of her own free will.

And when a musician, a young man named Baek Ah, begs Wang So to help him find his beloved, it's in her direction that he turns. Her stool is her throne, and she'll only drink the red drink that he makes, their eyes meeting even in pitch-black darkness.

 _I am found._

"Please, have you seen Woo Hee? She's confused, she thinks she has done something terrible."

Hae Soo sips her drink, looks between the musician and her husband, and eyes those who dance, the music akin to screaming.

"You may look for her, but don't look back. Never look back, or you'll never be found."

She touches her husband's hand, the quiet, understanding Wang So. The guide. The scholar of souls. The man who made her see, who accepted and was accepted, bartender and owner of the night club who could only be seen by the lost.

Outside, the broken sign no one could read spells _HADES_.


End file.
